Trip to school

Many people have asked the girls about school here. Now that they are well integrated into their classrooms, I'll try to get them to sit for another interview. Meanwhile I thought it would be of interest to share how we get there. In Madison we live about a 5 minute walk as the school is at the bottom of our street. Here it is a 20 minute walk, but not quite as typical as a walk through Madison. Here is our journey in pictures.

On the left is the street our flat is on. We walk up the hill and through a short pedestrian walk (on the right). From there we cross a crazy roundabout intersection and head downhill.

The blue building in the picture to the right is the library and cultural information center. The library is quite small but functional. It is not as integrated as the Madison system with all the other libraries in the area.






From there we follow a rather long street until it ends in what is left of countryside in Algorta.

We see lots of wildlife along the way. There are goats, occasionally roosters, cats, lizards and ducks. The goats and roosters are typically hanging out in the same field. As we continue our walk down the road we see our first set of cats. A couple of them come running to be greeted by the girls both in the morning and on our way home. We need to add a few extra minutes to our journey so the girls can get their kitty fix.

As we continue our journey we reach the end of this quiet road and are greeted by a rather busy roundabout intersection. Crossing there we pass under a highway and cross the street. This area is a very quiet neighborhood with mostly flats and a few stores but not nearly as active as the area in which we are living. There is a metro stop here so on really rainy days, the girls prefer the metro over the exercise. Ok, actually, everyday they would prefer the metro over the exercise, they just don't get that option ;-).

 
Our journey ends as we hit the little river and cross the bridge to their school. We typically see a couple more cats who are very skittish and several ducks.

On the left is the back of the school and the playground area for the elementary school kids. The picture on the right is the front of the school which has a couple of playsets for the younger kids. The school day begins and ends in this part of the school yard. Just as with Thoreau School in Madison, the kids line up by class to enter the building.
I hope you have enjoyed the picturesque journey between the mountains that we take daily to get to and from school. It's amazing to pass such a diversity of urban and rural settings in just a 20 minute walk.

Carnaval

In Schools
Last weekend was Carnaval here in the Basque region of Spain. It resembles Halloween in that people are in costume and out in the street but they don't go door to door. There is lots of dancing and singing and celebrating though. In school, all the kids had to dress up. Each class was assigned a particular theme that met with an overall school theme and they performed dances in the school yard. This year's theme for Maia and Morgan's school was Music: Past and Present. Morgan's class dressed in some sort of a Russian themed costume, danced to a song from days of old and then to Thriller. Maia's class was something out of yesteryer with white wigs and long gowns.  As you can imagine, she was not too thrilled about the wig part. Her class also danced to the sounds of Bach followed by Lady Gaga.

In the Streets
In addition to the celebrations in schools, the rest of the city celebrates in the streets all weekend. There were a number of parades and a variety of bands from today's music to traditional sounds and instruments, including both Spanish and French Basque regions. In the slide show you will see the gigantes y cabezudos (giants and big heads) which march through the streets. Notice the bags the big heads are holding. They use those to randomly wack people in the streets chasing both children and adults. Pictures were taken in Algorta, the town where we live, and Bilbao, the large city several metro stops away.

At night young people head out in costumes that are quite well done and enjoy carnaval celebrations into the wee hours of the morning. The costumes are often quite elaborate and done in groups to particular themes chosen by the groups. This continues for two weekends in a row and from what I can tell they look forward to it all year long in the same way as our kids look forward to Halloween.

School-Colegio Larrañazubi

The girls started school last week and it was an adjustment for all of us. They both have a significant amount of homework and there is definitely an "academic language" barrier to work around. Dean and I are both increasing our vocabulary as we also are taken back in time to elementary science concepts, some of my college Spanish linguistics, and then there is math where division problems are set up "upside down and backwards" from how we do it in the US.

The school here is much smaller and it is very family oriented in the sense that the teachers see the school as a big family where all the teachers know all the kids and are in regular communication with parents via an organizer that all the kids carry. They use it for writing down their homework daily and as a place for teachers and parents to communicate/pass messages.

More importantly I suspect that you would like to hear from the girls what they think so far so I decided to interview them. Below are their answers.

What time does school start and end? How do you get there? 
Morgan: school starts at 9am and ends at 2pm. We walk and if it is raining really hard we can go by metro. It takes 20 min. to walk there and there are lots of kitties along the way and you have to dodge dog poop on the sidewalk.
Maia: I walk very carefully because there are some busy streets. There are some little kittens and there is one that waits on its porch every day for us.

What subjects do you study?
Morgan: math, English, Euskera (Basque language), language arts (Spanish), music, physical education. My favorite is music.
Maia: Basque, social studies, science, math, music, language arts, during English I read in English, and while the other kids go to religion I do handcrafts. We have recess before and after lunch.

What is different about gym class?
Morgan: It's in a different building. One time a week you have a double hour and you shower after. There is only one teacher. There is a game where you stack mats and you have to hide behind them. There is one person who counts to 30 or 40 with eyes closed and while you are hiding, after they count they look for people behind the mats. If they find you but say the wrong name you don't have to go in the middle but if they say the right name you have to go in the middle. If she says a special word then you have to run and touch her back while she is counting and run back behind the mats.
Maia: Gym class is more competative as we are on teams and if your team wins you get a prize. Once a week we have a 2 hour class and we have to shower.

What is different about how you do lunch at school? 
Morgan: we have recess then lunch then recess. Lunch is at 2pm. After lunch you go home or do after school activities. We use actual plates, cups, and silverware. We all have a specific spot at our table. They serve the first plate. When most people have finished that one they serve the next plate. Then we get fruit or yogurt for dessert. After lunch you take your plate and put everything on top. Then you take your silverware and put them in water filled buckets, you dump your liquids in a bucket, you scrap your leftover food into the trash, you put your plate and cup on a cart on top of the others.
Maia: The food is fresh and much healthier than at Thoreau and for dessert we always have fruit or yogurt. We are served our food.

What do you do after school?
Morgan: Sports, theater, and painting. And every Wed. instead of staying for lunch we eat at home and go to Sopelana for an art class where we do painting, clay, drawing, and all those fun things.
Maia: I go to PE twice a week and theater once a week. I also have an art class. I have LOTS and LOTS of homework everyday.

What do you like the most?
Morgan: recess because you get to just play with your friends.
Maia: we have our own laptops in fifth grade. I also like my teachers.

What do you like the least?
Morgan: lunch because the food isn't that good. You can't bring your own lunch and the food is all new flavors.
Maia : exams, I have one tomorrow and I think I won't like it.

What other similarities and differences are there between school in Spain and in Madison?
Morgan: everything is different. In Madison you name the teachers Mr./Mrs. LastName but here you call them by their first name. To get to the music room and gym you have to walk outside. I miss having art at school but I like art in Sopelana.
I went on a field trip with 3rd & 4th grade classes and we walked to a port where there was a sailboat. We saw a movie and then we got to tour the sailboat. The sailboat traveled from Bilbao, Spain around Northern Europe and the captains Name was Unai Basurco. They did that trip to save some animals that were going extinct because of pollution in the water. They talked to people along the way that save the animals to find out how to protect them and find out what they do. There was a spoonbill bird that one man protected because the bird would stick their heads in the water with their eyes closed and would end up eating trash instead of fish.
Maia: Both are public schools. Here, we call our teachers by their first names, we have bells that indicate when it is time to switch classes. The littlest kids at the school here are 2 years old and the oldest kids are in 6th grade. There is only one class per grade here. There is no play structure at the playground. It is like the upper playground at Thoreau. At recess we are separated by age. Everything is in Spanish here. Here there is only one school bus and about half of my friends ride the bus and half walk like I do.

We encourage any comments or questions that any of you have. The girls are happy to share/investigate as they learn and experience more.